a program for manipulating text/font graphics for label artwork?

[mordechai]

I would like to know how to take a text cooked up with standard fonts in, say, Microsoft Word, and "shape" them in a way similar to these examples:

http://www.lumpystoneshop.com/lemondrop.htm




Anybody know how to do this??

[mordechai]

Oops...I meant to include this example as well:

http://www.mjmguitarfx.com/britbender.htm

[artifus]

http://inkscape.org/

http://www.brownbatterystudios.com/sixthings/2008/11/11/arched-text-an-inkscape-tutorial/

[mordechai]

Thanks that's really helpful!

[Mustachio]

In Photoshop After you create your font you have a set of tools at the top one of which is called warp text. Here you can do everything your looking for and you have pretty good control over it.

Its simple and fast. Id imagine other image editors like gimp do the same thing , but the tool may be called something different.

[mordechai]

Thanks, I'll give it a shot!

[deadastronaut]

+1 on inkscape!...no pixelation etc.. and plenty of tutorials too..

great free prog.

[mwynwood]

There is an awesome thread around here somewhere where people are collecting their artwork and designs and making them available.
Here it is: http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=97046.0

[Steve Mavronis]

GIMP
www.gimp.org

[markeebee]

Or you can use the 'WordArt' tool in MS Word to warp the text into shapes like the ones you linked to.  Word has some great graphics tools, often overlooked.

[defaced]

If you want to permanently hack a font, use FontCreator.  http://www.high-logic.com/font-editor/fontcreator.html

[mordechai]

Well, what I would like to do is draw a shape (an oval, for example) and move a text into it so that it fits the shape -- very much like what the MJM Brit Bender does with the word "Bender".  Having a hard time learning how to do this on inkscape, and photoshop seems to require a PhD (I have one of those, but in ancient history, so once again, I am reminded of how useless it is for practical purposes!).

[deadastronaut]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJI6CHcQr-U

[FiveseveN]

The keyword(s) is "text on a path". Many vector (e.g. Adobe Illustrator) and raster (Adobe Photoshop) graphics or layout (Adobe InDesign, Scribus) packages offer this feature, even Nero Cover Designer. It's also included in the SVG standard, which is what Inkscape works with.
So it shouldn't be too hard to pick one environment you'd find comfortable and Inkscape is probably a good place to start, being free and open-source and using an open vector graphics file format. The Adobe suite has a pretty steep learning curve up front but can't be beat in terms of features, which is what you'd expect from an expensive product targeted at professionals.

[davent]

Well, what I would like to do is draw a shape (an oval, for example) and move a text into it so that it fits the shape -- very much like what the MJM Brit Bender does with the word "Bender".  Having a hard time learning how to do this on inkscape, and photoshop seems to require a PhD (I have one of those, but in ancient history, so once again, I am reminded of how useless it is for practical purposes!).

Did you check out the Inkscape tutorial artifus linked, it's a pretty detailed account of how to morph lettering to match an oval outline.

[mordechai]

I did indeed see that tutorial, but it's not really what I was going for.  I really want the text/fonts to conform to the shape of an oval.  So, for example, if I type "Fuzz Face", and move it into an oval shape, I would want the first "F" of "Fuzz to be small, the "u" and "z" to be progressively larger/elongated, and the second "z" and first "F" of "Face" to be most elongated, and then the remaining letters to get progressively smaller, so the words "Fuzz Face" actually resembly an oval. 

I think I did a pretty crappy job explaining that.  I will just have to accept the headache that will come with learning a new program over a few weeks' time so that I can do this myself, because the tutorials online aren't really addressing my questions, though they are demonstrating the flexibility and parameters of the program which is helpful.

[FiveseveN]

Oh, now I get it! I missed the examples before the other post. It's a completely different situation and you have a couple of options:

• Optionally draw an oval or whichever shape you want as a guide. Manually type each letter at a time and scale and position it to fit
• Type some text and then distort it. In Illustrator you can "break it apart" into constituent paths which you can arbitrarily "envelope distort". Photoshop is of course more limited in vector manipulation tools but it includes Warp Text which will get you there. Or you can rasterize the text and manipulate the resulting pixels in every way Photoshop lets you (e.g. using the raster Warp Tool).

Hopefuly I threw a bunch of new concepts at you and if you want to get deeper into this mess you now know where to start from.

[mordechai]

Alright -- I'll give it a shot.  I do have access to Illustrator so perhaps that's the place to begin.

[markeebee]

Not wishing to bang on about it, but......this is close, I think.  Took about 30 seconds using WordArt.  The oval is just there to show how the text relates to the shape; with a little more jiggery pokery the text can follow the oval more closely.

[gmoon]

Inkscape rocks...although I think it used to be easier to warp text, it's more powerful now. Basically, it involves converting the text to a path, then using the "Path Effects Editor" (add "Envelope Deformation" to the effect list).

Here's a video:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3773088/how_to_bulge_and_warp_text_in_inkscape/

But whatever works...